New Mars Forums

In my opinion that divides into two different objectives. 
1) Scouting mission.
2) Habitation mission.

1) For the scouting mission, I have to wonder why people would be placed into the atmosphere at all.  It is dangerous, and I don't see that there is much that could be accomplished that could not be done with machines.

From my point of view, retrieval could involve having an orbital device come down rather deep so that it could glide/hover slow, and have the humans similarly get into a powered aircraft, and connect with it.  Very hard to do, and very dangerous.

2) For habitation, there are two options, (And a hybrid of them).
     a) Drop significant tonnage into the atmosphere and assemble it.
     b) Develop a robot presence on the surface and up into the clouds, and manufacture habitat there.

I would think that a multi-layered habitat which had a deck down at the 10 bar level, and decks above to a more habitable level, might allow for a glider to land at the 10 bar level onto an open deck.  Then that being brought back up to the highest deck level could be refueled, and launched to orbit.  But lots of danger there.  I think that it is a better plan that most people going to Venus plan to stay there for a long time, to reduce launches.

This could be modified, if a robot community made resources so abundant that rockets cost very little (Unlike now).

But this is all only my opinion, and can be justly challenged by other minds notions, and by new discoveries in the nature of things, or new technologies.

Oddly, I am supportive of the asteroid capture notion.  In addition to what Impaler has spoken, it may indicate what potential there could be for harvesting asteroids for economic purposes.  I also do think that this is much like working out at a gym.  The path to not being too wimpy to go to Mars, is to practice lesser tasks, hopefully that can still have some use, and we would hope build up the stamina in abilities to actually do Mars eventually.

Antius and Quaoar  Please keep going. 

I liked that material just presented.  Somewhat off from that topic, but here is some more information about Venus_Tail.

http://www.mpg.de/6885096/venus-tail

I am obviously hopeful to capture gasses from the Venus_Tail, for analysis, and perhaps even to make mission supportive materials.

I also am wondering if any of the trash that is expelled from space stations and burned in the atmosphere, might be recycled to make a radiation shield that could be deployed to an orbit of Venus, as part of a life support system for humans.

Thank you Quaoar.  That very generous.  May all your days be good.

http://www.space.com/28236-spacex-rocke … fluid.html

He says "hydraulic-fluid".  So looks like they are really getting close to their goals.

Tom, I guess I see that as a pretty good answer.

However, I do see that you have not yet decided to investigate what Venus could do for the human race more immediately. 

But I will also confess the robot surface and flying robot thing is pretty tentative.  I do not have enough information on wind energy, and materials which could be used, but of course you have to think of something in a broad way before you get down to the details, and find out yes or no it could work.

But if it did work it would not preclude that ultimately the humans in control could choose to fully terraform Venus to resemble the Earth.  However that would be a lot of work with very time delayed payback, and Venus is not really understood well enough to be certain that it could be done, even with 100,000 to 1,000,000 years to do it.

Personally, if I could manage to have confidence in a surface and flying robot community, and bean stalks or some variant that gives similar results, then ultimately I would consider a shell world, where in one option, 1/2 bar of Nitrogen and Oxygen was above the shell, and everything else below.  Since U.V. would be blocked from interacting with the Sulfur compounds, Acid Rain would be much reduced.  Granted Venus has quite a wind problem and I bet the loads would be horrific.   But it is something to think about.  Other problems might be snow building up on the night side of the shell.  However, perhaps the shell could naturally rotate with the wind.  Perhaps sails could bias it to rotate in a certain direction at a certain speed.   So, then with 1/2 bar, perhaps a night would not get below freezing?  But the days would be hot at the equator.  So, I suggest an expanded metal grid as the top deck.  Plants and humans could be below that.  The expanded metal deck might reflect some light back into space.  Of course windmills might render power, and the reaction of the wind to windmills might be your sails.  So, you would put drag on them if you wanted to make the wind push your shell in a certain direction, or let them freewheel, or just lock them down, if you did not want that wind drag.

Below the bottom deck would be clouds of water vapor and noxious gasses, including most CO2.  You could still have a hot surface, although you might have to inject some energy for that.  You could have your flying robots, the surface robots, and you could have water condensate from the bottom deck feed a hydroelectric process where water falls through pipes for miles and miles, generating hydroelectric power.  The water then would finally be impounded on the surface in covered insulated reservoirs, the water then used to either generate electricity by steam power (Very hot steam), or the water could be used to fill your surface and flying robots.

As for the robots,  Your inhabitants in Venus_L2, or Venus_Shells could have them as second bodies as in the movie avatar.  Of course with the shells, the below would be dark, but they could have infrared eyes, and bat like sonar, and I suppose radar.  And the surface of Venus supposedly glows a dull red.

So, this of course is only one option to think of.  I am very interested in the processes that appear to be going on on the surface of Venus.  I think they may be very valuable, and before dismissing the current nature of Venus, and entering on a more radical change of it, I feel options should be explored.  Yours is one Tom.

That vision of Venus requires a lot of time and effort expended to get something that may not be possible.  The people expending the time and energy would not get paychecks in their lifetimes for the work done.  I still believe that if you put a lot of water on the surfaced of Venus, you would get Super Volcano's, Volcano's, lots of quakes, etc.

For that kind of terraform, would it be 100,000 years, or 1,000,000?  O.K., if unknown super technologies can be discovered, then I will relent.

As for Venus_L2, I do see your concern Spacenut, and Tom, I still admire your craft for seeing Venus_L2's values.

Here is how I would address it Spacenut.  First of all, I am going to presume that during the next 30 years, human technology continues to advance including A.I.

I Would start with an A.I collection at Venus_L2, to direct robots about Venus_All.  The Venus_L2 A.I. would be upgraded with hardware additions from the Earth/Moon as desired.
Humans of Earth mostly would program the Venus_L2 A.I.

We can see that Mars rovers are becoming autonomous, I presume to larger degrees as time passes, and lessons are learned, and software innovations are created.

I would presume that at some point rather than humans planning a next move for a rover, the Venus_L2 A.I. would.  The humans of Earth would simply structure the A.I. so that it could do these tactical tasks.  Presumably the humans would instruct the A.I. on general plans.

So at that stage, radiation will not be an issue since no humans are likely to be hosted at Venus_L2 for very long.

But;
If small asteroid capture is mastered in the Earth/Moon subsystem, (Mirth?), and if methods to capture ions from the plasma tail of Venus can be devised, then there might be an economic model for humans to be hosted in large numbers in Venus_L2.

If true where asteroids are captured, and ions are captured from the Venus_Tail, then shielding will be available to protect from radiation.  Silicates, Metals, and Hydrocarbons, such as Paraffin Wax.  I would think that hollow worlds made of such materials and having synthetic gravity would then be possible.

So, as far as I can see, there are three best places to begin human activities either with humans or their machine proxies.  Orbital, Cloud, and surface for Venus_All.

Tom appears to have found the sweetest spot for orbital, which is Venus_L2

To me Cloud allows humans to enter, but it is hard to get the humans back to orbit, and there is no point in getting them down to the surface, unless you want to cremate them.  Machines in the clouds have little resources to expand with.  They can most likely be placed there from orbit, or from the surface of Venus, but once there, other than information relays, or possible Sulfuric Acid/H20 collectors, and weather forecasting, they would have little purpose.

While Venus_L2 was being developed (if possible), you could try to have a surface machine culture under development.  For early probes, a power system like Curiosity might pay off, presuming that you could make the robots life span long enough.

Later a scheme might involve landing a stationary nuclear reactor somehow, and have it manufacture liquid C02 and/or N2, which could be injected into steam powered robots.  An alternative to that would be to land a windmill, which it might be noted might be able to rotor down to the surface, and use it's rotor to collect power to again manufacture liquid C02 and/or N2, which could be injected into steam powered robots.  The Liquid CO2 would suit surface robots, the Liquid Nitrogen would suit flying robots, which could use floats filled with Nitrogen to rise (The exhaust from their engines),  They could also have propellers, wings, and perhaps wings like birds.

Perhaps you could make a Tinker-Bell robot.  Tinker-Bell in Hell

Tinker-Bell (Or a more sensible flying robot), could move all the way from the surface, through the clouds, and above the clouds I think.

So, all the flying Fairy robots could build things in the clouds, and perhaps even manage to build and maintain a bean stock to the clouds from the surface, provided that materials suitable for such robots are possible, will endure the environment, and provided the wind conditions are not too harsh.

And I say that it would be better for the human race if it can manage to do it this way, because along they way they will have mastered new environments, and created new technologies that would be useful for their presumed future elsewhere.

Tom you are correct that the machines that have been sent and are likely to be sent in the next few decades deteriorated/will deteriorate rather quickly in the atmospheric environments of Venus.  I will leave the acid clouds alone, and focus on the dry Troposphere.  Materials for the acid clouds is another issue.

However, I recall that supposedly the mountains of Venus are higher then they should be because the Troposphere is dry.  The rock is stiffer without moisture.

So, this suggests that humans have not yet created materials which can last in the Venus_Troposphere(s).  For some materials the heat may not be a large challenge.

But it seems that the troposphere and the surface need to be divided into two domains.  Troposphere_Condensate, Troposphere_SuperCritical, Surface_Condensate, Surface_Supercritical.

I am going to leave behind Troposphere_SuperCritical & Surface_SuperCritical.

I am very interested in Troposphere_Condensate & Surface_Condensate.

As far as I can see, it is a domain where pressure is >12? Bars and 88? Bars<  (Roughly).

Clearly it is all very hot, and the atmosphere is so dense that it suggests the use of flying/floating robots.

It almost certainly excludes the presence of sane humans, and I don't see how our current semi-conductor technology could function there without continuous refrigeration of some kind.

If you just used Venus_L2, and forgot about Venus_Airship for a while, you might hope to master Venus_Surface_Condensate & Venus_Troposphere_Condensate by using wind as your energy source.

Robots would most likely as you have suggested be second bodies for a human or computer at a more favorable location.  Perhaps Venus_L2, perhaps Venus_Airship.

Robots by definition have the human property of motion (Which is also related to manipulation of objects, and Violence).   In order to have motion they have to have energy.

If you skipped the Airship concept for a time, and had a list of materials which could survive at Venus_Surface_Condensate, you might be able to harness the wind to power your robots.  The method might involve liquifying a gas in the atmosphere, then feeding that into the robots to be boiled like a steam engine/turbine.

As you have previously indicated weather on Venus might be a challenge.  It would be the same everywhere, because Venus_Surface_Condensate includes all the highlands which includes mountains (Changes in altitude), and differences in latitude.

By using the method Venus_L2 & Venus_Surface_Condensate, it might be possible to build Bean Stocks up to the clouds, and to then tap the Sulfuric Acid/ H20 mix, and to then make the clouds less acid.  By this method humans would not be exposed to the acid environment until it has been buffered sufficiently.  Then when they did inhabit the clouds, it would be more favorable, and they would in fact have a vast array of robot actuators to produce materials for them to use from the surface.

During the development of Venus_Condensate(s), no rockets to orbit from Venus would be required, except perhaps for some sample returns.

So then communion between Earth/Moon and Venus_L2, and a one way trip for a directed replicating machine culture to Venus_Condensates(s), which would eventually project into the clouds of Venus to receive humans.

Now I am done

I believe you are thinking well for the starting intent of this thread.

I was exploring what I thought was an alternative potential utilization future for humans at Venus.  Without such a potential, it would be pointless to put humans into the atmospheric envelope.  I am satisfied that there will be potential, and I will get into your frame of mind as much as I can to discuss your points.

You did well identifying L2 as an Earth orbit similar environment near Venus.  That suggests that the hardware utilized in the Earth/Moon environment will be more likely to behave in a familiar fashion.  That would be important for long term planning.

Since we may think that Venus may have genuine material potential to enhance the material and spiritual character of the human race.  A human mission to the Venus L2 does make sense, to work with machines sent into the Venus environment.  It may be fortunate that such a mission might utilize machines currently in production for experiments with capturing small asteroids, and also for going to Mars.

What you have stated seems rather good. 

As I have been looking at it from bottom to top for locations on Venus, you have;
-Lowland surface where Supercritical CO2 dissolving processes may naturally occur, and might actually be augmented artificially in chambers.
-Highlands, that may be favorable to the condensation of evaporates, and might be more machine friendly.
-A very hot troposphere, which non the less may avoid Supercritical CO2 erosion, and Sulfuric Acid Corrosion.
-Mist and Cloud layers mostly Sulfuric Acid, but with some water particularly lower down.
-Above that atmosphere that might support lighter than air craft and planes, and perhaps atmosphere breathing jets. 
-A low orbit environment.
-Lagrangian points, of which you have reason to favor L2.

I would like now to suppose a structure that would resemble river grass.  Flexible in the wind, anchored to the highland surface, reaching into the mist and cloud layers. Flattening out there.

In the part in the cloud layers greenhouses enclosing gardens.  Liquid (Sulfuric Acid/Water) condensing on the outside where it runs into drains.  An internal drainage piping system that allows gravitational flow downward, downward through the stock.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/boili … d_926.html

It seems that at the base of the mist/clouds is a pressure of about 10 bars + and perhaps about (00PS! )Correction ~175 deg? That's not hot enough to decompose the Sulfuric acid but a little further down would be.  Above 300 degC is needed, and it must then be a vapor, so perhaps at those temps, if part was vented through a special turbine, it might leave behind a liquid of more H20?  Don't know.

Surface temp of Venus + 870 °F (+ 465°C)

Rough guess is that the temp is about 276.85 degC at the base 10 bar level, so entering a bit lower into the troposphere might be a location where a decomposition of Sulfuric Acid could occur.

So ideally, using some type of decomposer process, and ending up with water the rest of the way down (If possible).

Collecting hydroelectric energy all the way down, thermal insulation on the pipelines to keep the pressurized water liquid at a maximum allowable.

Collecting the water in insulated tanks on the surface, but venting steam to cool them as they will heat up even with insulation.  The venting process however could also generate electricity.

At various point in altitude of the Troposphere it should be possible to fill tanks on flying robots with water.  So, robots could use steam filled reservoirs for lift, and also have steam driven propellers, or wings.

Humans further up could be connected to the perceptual parts of the robots, to experience what they experience.  Also humans could direct them in building and maintaining such devices.

Quite a challenge, even if possible in the imagination.  However if one of them was possible, why not many?  and if many, then perhaps the destruction rate for Sulfuric Acid would exceed the production rate, and that would make the clouds and mist much less acid, and might even allow "Open Air" agriculture up in the clouds on the upper flatter parts of the "Blades of Grass".  However, I would not want to try to change the atmosphere from CO2 dominant to O2/N2 dominant.

So, why not have it all including low Venus orbit and L2.  All of it together with the Earth and Mars would make quite an expansion of our civilization.

Yes, I kind of liked their notions.

I am beginning to think we can consider harmonizing with existing conditions, on Venus, and perhaps Mars(At first).  Actually, that is probably a necessary requirement.

It has also occurred to me that with floatation properties in the troposphere of Venus, it is not inconceivable to build a "Bean stock" to go from the ground all the way up to the condensate in the lower cloud belt where the Sulfuric Acid is buffered by some water.

So then if you could collect it, the water and Sulfuric Acid mix, and move it down to a level where the Sulfuric Acid would decompose, then you might end up with water at a high temperature, but still liquid, and that could be allowed to fall all the way down tubes to the ground.  (I don't think liquid water is lighter than the 90 bar CO2 dominant hot atmospheric gas mixture on Venus).  And then so hydro-electric power.

Water then being insulated in tanks (Vented through turbines as necessary/desired) more electric power.  Then perhaps for vehicles steam engines.  Fill their tanks with liquid water, and then they would power by turbines as heat leaking in heated the tanked water.

Then also with water boil power, flying robots.

Problems as always are the corrosive nature of the environment, heat (But it's starting to look like heat has it's advantages), pressure (Not necessarily too much of a problem), and wind.

Although I might want windmills, at 90 bars, even a small wind could nock over a skyscraper.  That would have to be studied, and solutions found if possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oet63vzBvkg

So someone thinks that rovers could operate on the surface of Venus.  I presume they would be nuclear powered like Curiosity.  I wonder what kind of computers and motors they think could be built to operate at those heat levels.

I am glad that they must be thinking about it.

The video is a bit old, but Venus is still there.